Judge Cuts Attorney Fees by $1M in NY BAR/BRI Settlement

Lawyers who sued BAR/BRI for alleged antitrust violations in New York saw their requested attorney fees slashed by about $1 million in a settlement of the case.

U.S. District Judge William Pauley denied a request for a 24 percent contingent fee, which would have amounted to $3.1 million, the New York Law Journal reports. He instead approved fees of about 16 percent, amounting to $2.1 million.

BAR/BRI’s parent company, the Thomson Corp., agreed to settle the class-action suit for $13 million last November. It followed a $49 million settlement in a different BAR/BRI antitrust suit filed in California.

Pauley said the risk in the New York case had been reduced by the California settlement, according to the Law Journal story. He ruled on fees as he approved the New York settlement. The suit had claimed students were forced to take the state-specific bar review class along with a multistate course.

The lawyers representing the plaintiffs are Roy Katriel of Washington, D.C., and Brian Murray of New York, the story says.